Hello, I'm new to the forums and I'm about to embark on a new build that will be centered around the Sandy Bridge-e i7-3930K CPU and the ability to run a very stable Pro Tools audio production system (preferably a system on the quieter side as well if possible). These are the components I have been looking at and I want to know if there are any parts that anyone would recommend substituting for what I have chosen (for example, maybe a different PSU or different/better SSD), and if there is anything I left out that I should have. I will also be overclocking this system. Thanks.

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K

Motherboard: Undecided, but currently leaning towards the ASUS P9X79 DELUXE or the ASRock X79 Extreme9, unless there is a different board much more worth it.

RAM: Also undecided, but considering the Mushkin Enhanced Redline 16GB (4 x 4GB) 2133 Model 993997, unless there is a better option (I also acknowledge that the RAM is still being slowly released for this line, so the options may change soon as well)

I'm no expert but I know from experience here and reading the articles here that no one would recommend the Intel Core i7-3930K at it's current price range. Of course that's up to you. They also recommend a Thermalright Silver arrow or Noctua NH-D14 cooler over a Corsair water cooling because it's less noisy.

Are you going to SLI your graphics cards? You seem to be going the extreme on everything else might as well upgrade there and get a better PSU to handle it all.

Even if you're doing professional work, I don't think Sandy Bridge E is really compelling over normal Sandy Bridge or even the Gulftown platform, especially not with Ivy Bridge around the corner. My recommendation would be to get a Sandy Bridge system now and get an Ivy Bridge system down the road (in 6 months). Is Sandy Bridge E the fastest out there? Yes it is, but it's really not that much faster than Sandy Bridge or Gulftown.

Also, with those fans, the Thermalright Silver Arrow should outperform the Corsair H100.

(11-26-2011, 07:28 PM)Pineappl Wrote: I'm no expert but I know from experience here and reading the articles here that no one would recommend the Intel Core i7-3930K at it's current price range. Of course that's up to you. They also recommend a Thermalright Silver arrow or Noctua NH-D14 cooler over a Corsair water cooling because it's less noisy.

Are you going to SLI your graphics cards? You seem to be going the extreme on everything else might as well upgrade there and get a better PSU to handle it all.

The i7-3930K is terrible for gamers, but I'm using this more for a professional rig for audio production, and Pro Tools is optimized for multithreading usage. In the Pro Tools forums they expect tremendous performance increases over the old systems, and as the performance Pro Tools systems up until now were still using the high end first generation CPUs, it's not too much of a price change, and it's more current. I will probably be waiting about a month before I purchase the CPU, motherboard, and RAM due to prices currently taking advantage of it being a new product, and prices should hopefully stabilize a bit by then. As for the cooler, it may be less noisy, but does it cool as well? These CPUs supposedly run decently hot, and since I'll be overclocking this system, I was afraid that without using water cooling that I wouldn't be able to cool the CPU enough. As for the video card, as I said before, this is a system more for a professional audio production rig, although I will be working a little with some video production and editing. I more need a card that can nicely power my monitor effectively and that won't lag behind terribly for rendering. The "recommended" cards for the programs I use are the Quadro series, however as those are incredibly expensive, especially for one that can power a monitor with the resolution of mine, I opted out of taking that path. As for a better PSU, are there any you may recommend?

(11-26-2011, 07:28 PM)Pineappl Wrote: I'm no expert but I know from experience here and reading the articles here that no one would recommend the Intel Core i7-3930K at it's current price range. Of course that's up to you. They also recommend a Thermalright Silver arrow or Noctua NH-D14 cooler over a Corsair water cooling because it's less noisy.

Are you going to SLI your graphics cards? You seem to be going the extreme on everything else might as well upgrade there and get a better PSU to handle it all.

The i7-3930K is terrible for gamers, but I'm using this more for a professional rig for audio production, and Pro Tools is optimized for multithreading usage. In the Pro Tools forums they expect tremendous performance increases over the old systems, and as the performance Pro Tools systems up until now were still using the high end first generation CPUs, it's not too much of a price change, and it's more current. I will probably be waiting about a month before I purchase the CPU, motherboard, and RAM due to prices currently taking advantage of it being a new product, and prices should hopefully stabilize a bit by then. As for the cooler, it may be less noisy, but does it cool as well? These CPUs supposedly run decently hot, and since I'll be overclocking this system, I was afraid that without using water cooling that I wouldn't be able to cool the CPU enough. As for the video card, as I said before, this is a system more for a professional audio production rig, although I will be working a little with some video production and editing. I more need a card that can nicely power my monitor effectively and that won't lag behind terribly for rendering. The "recommended" cards for the programs I use are the Quadro series, however as those are incredibly expensive, especially for one that can power a monitor with the resolution of mine, I opted out of taking that path. As for a better PSU, are there any you may recommend?

If you have high end first generation Core i7, this will make very little difference. If anything, the stock configuration of the Silver Arrow or NH-D14 will outperform the H100. If you want the H100 to outperform them, you're going to need more fans and better fans, which, at that point, would be a terrible value since a custom water loop would be better.

EDIT:I'd also like to point out there is almost no performance advantage to getting faster RAM. I'd just get 1600MHz as that seems to be the standard speed nowadays.

(11-26-2011, 07:28 PM)Pineappl Wrote: I'm no expert but I know from experience here and reading the articles here that no one would recommend the Intel Core i7-3930K at it's current price range. Of course that's up to you. They also recommend a Thermalright Silver arrow or Noctua NH-D14 cooler over a Corsair water cooling because it's less noisy.

Are you going to SLI your graphics cards? You seem to be going the extreme on everything else might as well upgrade there and get a better PSU to handle it all.

The i7-3930K is terrible for gamers, but I'm using this more for a professional rig for audio production, and Pro Tools is optimized for multithreading usage. In the Pro Tools forums they expect tremendous performance increases over the old systems, and as the performance Pro Tools systems up until now were still using the high end first generation CPUs, it's not too much of a price change, and it's more current. I will probably be waiting about a month before I purchase the CPU, motherboard, and RAM due to prices currently taking advantage of it being a new product, and prices should hopefully stabilize a bit by then. As for the cooler, it may be less noisy, but does it cool as well? These CPUs supposedly run decently hot, and since I'll be overclocking this system, I was afraid that without using water cooling that I wouldn't be able to cool the CPU enough. As for the video card, as I said before, this is a system more for a professional audio production rig, although I will be working a little with some video production and editing. I more need a card that can nicely power my monitor effectively and that won't lag behind terribly for rendering. The "recommended" cards for the programs I use are the Quadro series, however as those are incredibly expensive, especially for one that can power a monitor with the resolution of mine, I opted out of taking that path. As for a better PSU, are there any you may recommend?

If you have high end first generation Core i7, this will make very little difference. If anything, the stock configuration of the Silver Arrow or NH-D14 will outperform the H100. If you want the H100 to outperform them, you're going to need more fans and better fans, which, at that point, would be a terrible value since a custom water loop would be better.

EDIT:I'd also like to point out there is almost no performance advantage to getting faster RAM. I'd just get 1600MHz as that seems to be the standard speed nowadays.

I don't have a high end first generation Core i7, however that's what most of the builds out there for my purpose are. My choice essentially was to either go with a first gen CPU or this one for this build, that's the reason I chose this one. What I was considering doing was using the Twocool fans that come with the Antec case in combination with the Corsair, and move the Corsair fans inside the case to assist in air circulation by the hard drives. Would that be a good idea, or no? Honestly, a reason I'm trying to make the Corsair work is that it's one of the few components that I actually already placed an order for (newegg had it on sale for $70 after MIR), so if I go to return it now I will have to pay a $15 restocking fee. I realize now from what you are saying that this was a mistake, however I was unaware of that before. As for the RAM, what you recommended to me is not truly a quad channel kit, but rather 2 dual channel kits packaged together. Since I will be overclocking the system, will having 1600MHz RAM still work nicely with it, or do I need faster RAM to get a better overclock? There have been reports of people pushing this CPU up to 4.9GHz from the 3.2GHz stock stably, so I don't know what the best RAM would be to pair that with then.

Pardon me, I thought you had a first generation Core i7. Since you don't, I'd probably get a Sandy Bridge and upgrade to Ivy Bridge in the future. If you don't want to upgrade in the near future and want a future proofed system, go for Sandy Bridge E. Since you're going with such a high end professional workstation, I'd want to get four fans with good static pressure and use the Corsairs as case fans. I'd recommend the Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15, which is pretty quiet and offers good static pressure.

With regards to RAM, there's really not any difference between two dual channel kits and a quad channel kit. The RAM should work fine. Overclocking doesn't necessitate high end RAM any more. The Core i7 has an unlocked multiplier so you can overclock without affecting the RAM.

(11-26-2011, 09:01 PM)Brian Wrote: Pardon me, I thought you had a first generation Core i7. Since you don't, I'd probably get a Sandy Bridge and upgrade to Ivy Bridge in the future. If you don't want to upgrade in the near future and want a future proofed system, go for Sandy Bridge E. Since you're going with such a high end professional workstation, I'd want to get four fans with good static pressure and use the Corsairs as case fans. I'd recommend the Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15, which is pretty quiet and offers good static pressure.

With regards to RAM, there's really not any difference between two dual channel kits and a quad channel kit. The RAM should work fine. Overclocking doesn't necessitate high end RAM any more. The Core i7 has an unlocked multiplier so you can overclock without affecting the RAM.

Regular Sandy Bridge hasn't been perfectly stable for a lot of people using Pro Tools due to the integration of the onboard video onto the chip itself (it's an incredibly temperamental program), so I think Sandy Bridge-e should just be safer in general. As for with the fans, where are you recommending one type over the other (I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding how you're differentiating the placement)? Also I believe those fans you recommended have been discontinued, as they're sold out everywhere. With the RAM, for Sandy Bridge-e there is a difference for the Quad Channel kits, as Sandy Bridge-e runs true Quad Channel, unlike regular Sandy Bridge where it just means that 2 Dual Channels are being packaged together, that's the issue.

(11-26-2011, 09:01 PM)Brian Wrote: Pardon me, I thought you had a first generation Core i7. Since you don't, I'd probably get a Sandy Bridge and upgrade to Ivy Bridge in the future. If you don't want to upgrade in the near future and want a future proofed system, go for Sandy Bridge E. Since you're going with such a high end professional workstation, I'd want to get four fans with good static pressure and use the Corsairs as case fans. I'd recommend the Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15, which is pretty quiet and offers good static pressure.

With regards to RAM, there's really not any difference between two dual channel kits and a quad channel kit. The RAM should work fine. Overclocking doesn't necessitate high end RAM any more. The Core i7 has an unlocked multiplier so you can overclock without affecting the RAM.

Regular Sandy Bridge hasn't been perfectly stable for a lot of people using Pro Tools due to the integration of the onboard video onto the chip itself (it's an incredibly temperamental program), so I think Sandy Bridge-e should just be safer in general. As for with the fans, where are you recommending one type over the other (I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding how you're differentiating the placement)? Also I believe those fans you recommended have been discontinued, as they're sold out everywhere. With the RAM, for Sandy Bridge-e there is a difference for the Quad Channel kits, as Sandy Bridge-e runs true Quad Channel, unlike regular Sandy Bridge where it just means that 2 Dual Channels are being packaged together, that's the issue.

The Corsair fans packaged with your cooler aren't very good. The Gentle Typhoons have high static pressure (the most important thing for a cooler) while being silent, so use those for the cooler. You can do whatever you want with the Corsair fans, but I'd use them as case fans instead of wasting them. They aren't discontinued, just in high demand and hard to find. There are other options, but they aren't as good as the GTs.

Yes, I know that RAM for Sandy Bridge E is quad channel, so you should use the G.Skill kit with RAM slots of the same color, so it runs quad channel. The RAM modules are pretty much identical, so it doesn't matter how they're bundled.

(11-26-2011, 09:01 PM)Brian Wrote: Pardon me, I thought you had a first generation Core i7. Since you don't, I'd probably get a Sandy Bridge and upgrade to Ivy Bridge in the future. If you don't want to upgrade in the near future and want a future proofed system, go for Sandy Bridge E. Since you're going with such a high end professional workstation, I'd want to get four fans with good static pressure and use the Corsairs as case fans. I'd recommend the Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15, which is pretty quiet and offers good static pressure.

With regards to RAM, there's really not any difference between two dual channel kits and a quad channel kit. The RAM should work fine. Overclocking doesn't necessitate high end RAM any more. The Core i7 has an unlocked multiplier so you can overclock without affecting the RAM.

Regular Sandy Bridge hasn't been perfectly stable for a lot of people using Pro Tools due to the integration of the onboard video onto the chip itself (it's an incredibly temperamental program), so I think Sandy Bridge-e should just be safer in general. As for with the fans, where are you recommending one type over the other (I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble understanding how you're differentiating the placement)? Also I believe those fans you recommended have been discontinued, as they're sold out everywhere. With the RAM, for Sandy Bridge-e there is a difference for the Quad Channel kits, as Sandy Bridge-e runs true Quad Channel, unlike regular Sandy Bridge where it just means that 2 Dual Channels are being packaged together, that's the issue.

The Corsair fans packaged with your cooler aren't very good. The Gentle Typhoons have high static pressure (the most important thing for a cooler) while being silent, so use those for the cooler. You can do whatever you want with the Corsair fans, but I'd use them as case fans instead of wasting them. They aren't discontinued, just in high demand and hard to find. There are other options, but they aren't as good as the GTs.

Yes, I know that RAM for Sandy Bridge E is quad channel, so you should use the G.Skill kit with RAM slots of the same color, so it runs quad channel. The RAM modules are pretty much identical, so it doesn't matter how they're bundled.

Okay, I wasn't understanding, but now I get it. So I would mount 2 fans to either side of the cooler then? And with the Corsair fans, I'll probably use them in the interior of the case then. Thank you for those recommendations. I also just e-mailed newegg in the slight hopes that I may be able to convince them to waive the restocking fee so I could instead get the Noctua CPU fan if possible instead of just having wasted money. Either that or I may see if I can just sell the H100 as it came out to $70 after all the rebates, down from $120 normally, so I may be able to just recoup the cost that way, whichever works. If I were able to sell the H100, then your recommendation would definitely be to go with the Noctua?